1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for filtering program service name (“PSN”) data.
2. Description of the Known Technology
Radio stations, such as FM radio stations, are capable of transmitting sub-carrier data. One type of sub-carrier data commonly transmitted by FM stations is PSN data. PSN data is sent in eight character blocks. FM stations generally use PSN data to transmit station identification information. For example, a radio station may transmit in PSN data identifiers such as “94.7 WCSX”, “101 WRIF”, and “89X”. Radio receivers such as those commonly found in automobiles, will receive PSN data from these FM stations and will display this data on a display device. By so doing, the user of the radio receiver will be more likely to recognize the radio station name.
Generally, PSN data transmitted by radio stations is static or is slowly updated. For example, a radio station may usually transmit “94.7 WCSX” as PSN data. However, when a public service announcement is being broadcasted, the radio station may transmit “PSA” to indicate that a public service announcement is being broadcasted. However, some FM stations update the transmitted PSN data in very fast time intervals, about one second. This updated PSN data may contain additional information such as artist, song title, and/or album name. Like before, this information is received by the radio receiver, displayed on the display device and is visible by the user. Although dynamically updating the PSN data in a rapid succession may seem like a feature since it provides the user with more information (such as song title and artist), some users may be distracted by such updates. These distractions become more of a problem when the user is an operator of an automobile. By updating the PSN data rapidly, the operator's attention may be diverted to the radio display, instead of remaining on the road on which the automobile is traveling.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method of filtering PSN data so as to remove PSN data that may be distracting to the user.